As a part of its next steps toward going public, cryptocurrency trading platform company Aurox has closed on a $5 million investment.
The investment is the first direct investment the Cross Roads-based company has taken and was led by a series of high-net-worth individuals, according to a news release. The company said the investment would drive marketing and scale users.
The company, which has a product that has been called the "Bloomberg Terminal for crypto," told the Dallas Business Journal at the beginning of February that it has not determined its specific avenue to a public move but is looking to be publicly traded by the end of 2022.
A move to the public markets is better than taking on venture capital for Aurox, which also has its crypto token, CEO Giorgi Khazaradze told the Business Journal recently. VCs can exert influence, and taking that kind of investment "just didn't align with our vision of the company," he said.
"This strategic investment gives us the ability to scale out our development team, deliver unique DeFi (decentralized finance) based applications and protocols, and heavily market to over 200 million crypto traders worldwide," he said in a statement.
The release said that the round was led by RB Capital Partners Brett Rosen and Deborah Braun. Braun said the company's accomplishments thus far were impressive, considering they were self-funded up to this point.
"The dedicated following they have already amassed is very impressive and will lend itself well to their organic growth strategy," Braun said in a prepared statement. "Helping them bring DeFi to the public markets will completely change the crypto industry."
The company said it has grown to more than 60,000 users, who average about 2.5 hours a day on their platform. It said that more than $600 million had been traded on their site.
